Formerly known as Analex, QinetiQ’s new contract expands work that
Analex was providing to CIFA since 2003. CIFA manages a database of
what it regards as "suspicious incidents" in the U.S. The database
includes intelligence, law enforcement, counterintelligence, and
security reports, as well as raw non-validated information from DOD's
"Threat and Local Observation Notice" (TALON) reporting system of
unfiltered information.
In 2006, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of
Information request to inspect TALON’s documentation. It received and
reviewed hundreds of TALON documents, among which was a 2006 memo
listing 186 reports involving “anti-military protests or demonstrations
in the U.S., several peaceful protesters identified as potential
threats to the military, and 2,821 TALON reports relating to “U.S.
person information” and “anti-military protests or demonstrations in
the U.S.” These reports were entered into a DOD anti-terrorist threat
database.
Pentagon documents released by the ACLU show that the DOD monitored the
activities of a wide range of peace groups, including Veterans for
Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, Code
Pink, the American Friends Service Committee, the War Resisters League,
and United for Peace and Justice.
The organization said the Pentagon’s misuse of the TALON database is
just one example of increased government surveillance of innocent
Americans.
“It cannot be an accident or coincidence that nearly 200 anti-war
protests ended up in a Pentagon threat database,” said Ann Beeson, the
ACLU’s Associate Legal Director. “This unchecked surveillance is part
of a broad pattern of the Bush administration using ‘national security’
as an excuse to run roughshod over the privacy and free speech rights
of Americans.”
And Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA, told IPS, “This is a prime
example of how the U.S. government has created a broad definition of
"domestic terrorism" that overreaches, and can have a chilling effect
on our rights to free expression, free association, and privacy. Even
in times of crisis, it is important to preserve our constitutional
rights. As Benjamin Franklin said, ‘He who gives up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor
safety’."
Telephone calls to QinetiQ’s offices seeking comment for this article were not returned.
TALON was created after the U.S. Congress in 2002 approved a proposal
backed by Rumsfeld and Vice President Richard Cheney to create a new
undersecretary slot at the Pentagon specifically for intelligence.
Cambone was given the job. Under the law, Cambone exercised the
Secretary of Defense’s “authority, direction and control” over all DOD
intelligence, counterintelligence and security policy, plans and
programs.
The mission of Rumsfeld and Cambone was to give the Pentagon greater
authority in the area of human intelligence, traditionally the preserve
of the CIA. Cambone’s deputy was Army Lieutenant General William G.
“Jerry” Boykin, then a deputy undersecretary of defense for
intelligence. Boykin was later reprimanded by the Army for
“inappropriate” comments made in a series of speeches given in
evangelical churches while in his military uniform, in which he
described the war on terrorism as a Christian battle against evil.
Civil libertarians and human rights activists have drawn parallels
between CIFA’s collection and retention of data on peace groups and
other activists and the domestic collection of data through such
programs as COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program). COINTELPRO was a
program of the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political
organizations within the U.S. Its targets were organizations that were
at the time considered to have politically radical elements, ranging
from groups such as The Weahtermen, who advocated the violent overthrow
of the U.S. government to such non-violent civil rights activist
organizations as
Martin Luther King Jr.'s
Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Such acitivites were later strictly regulated by laws such as the
Privacy Act of 1974, which strengthened and specified a U.S. citizen's right to privacy as guaranteed by the
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
According to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh of The New
Yorker magazine, Cambone was also involved in the Abu Ghraib prison
torture scandal. Hersh claimed the interrogations at Abu Ghraib were
part of a highly classified Special Access Program (SAP) code-named
Copper Green, authorized by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
ultimately overseen by Cambone.
Originally a joint CIA-Pentagon program in Afghanistan that utilized
highly trained Special Operations personnel, Copper Green eventually
expanded to Iraq, Hersh reported, where Cambone decided to begin using
non-Special Operations personnel -- including military intelligence
officers and other military personnel --to begin questioning prisoners
whose status was outside the program's original brief. He wrote that
the CIA objected and withdrew from the program, while Cambone
apparently tasked Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former Guantánamo Bay
interrogations chief, with "Gitmo-izing" Iraq's prison system.
The bottom line: Rummie may be gone, but the Bush Administration and
its army of private contractors continues to be chockablock with his
private armies and neocon sycophants. And most of the departed are
re-entering, and earning a ton more money in the process.
If you were hoping that Bob Gates was going to change all that, get over it.
Writings 
The Pentagon office that claims to monitor terrorist threats to U.S. military bases in North America – but is known to have spied on at least 186 peaceful anti-war protests in the U.S. – has just awarded a $30 million contract to a company whose senior management includes the former Defense Department (DOD) official who set up that office.
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